The civility of silence

Published 4:19 pm, Thursday, May 9, 2013

In this Sept. 6, 1928 file photo, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge shoots at clay pigeons at his vacation home on the Brule at Superior, Wis., He scored 29 out of 37. (AP Photo/File)

In this Sept. 6, 1928 file photo, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge shoots at clay pigeons at his vacation home on the Brule at Superior, Wis., He scored 29 out of 37. (AP Photo/File)

Photo: Associated Press

The civility of silence

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The great diva of Washington, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, was the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of a prominent congressional leader, Nicholas Longworth. But one politician Alice Longworth didn't like when she first met him was Calvin Coolidge. When Coolidge arrived in Washington in 1921 as vice president, Alice told others that the former Massachusetts governor looked as though he has been weaned on a pickle.

The pickle story isn't the only such anecdote about Coolidge, who became our 30th president after President Warren Harding died in 1923. To Washingtonians, the Coolidges -- New Englanders who saved their pennies -- seemed strange. Another society lady had heard Silent Cal was silent, and reckoned she could loosen him up. Meeting Coolidge at a party, the lady said, brightly, and before others "I made a bet I could get you to say more than two words tonight." Coolidge's reply to the lady?

"You lose." And she did.

Such sharpness was not exactly what the loquacious Washington of the 1920s was accustomed to. Pointed short answers are also certainly not what we expect today. Today, in Washington, or in private life, first encounters mean much. Every business school in America instructs graduating students that their entire future depends on making a good first impression in a first interview. "Perception is reality," the schools preach. Being silent, or frank, or not agreeing with your discussion partner, are for their part considered rude and uncivil.

But there was a reason for Coolidge's taciturnity, and for his frankness. It was that Coolidge, who served from 1923 until 1929, believed in silence as a form of civility. If you were silent, you never promised too much, and therefore never disappointed. "Nothing I didn't say ever hurt me," as the 30th president put it later. Coolidge had a different policy: under-promise, and over-deliver. Then people will come to like you in a more genuine way. They won't just be charmed by you. They will trust you.

Coolidge's philosophy came out of his early experience in his trade, the law. Lawyers charge by the hour, so the more they talk, the more money they get. But the lawyer who can give short efficient advice will tend to be preferred by clients. As a young attorney in the law firm of Hammond and Field in Northampton, Mass., Coolidge thought his clients deserved short answers, even though those answers might be hard to formulate. In 1896 a selectman, Orville Prouty from nearby Hadley, happened to be present when another man was killed while rowing on a local lake. Along with the tragedy came several knotty and local legal questions, such as what liability might be incurred if the deceased were moved. Prouty came running into the law firm in Northampton to seek advice. Without looking up, the clerk Coolidge ruled from his desk, uttering only three words: "can move body."

Prouty repeated his question, and got the same sort of answer: "yes, can move body." Prouty went to the senior attorney, Hammond, to confirm the young man's authority. Coolidge hadn't been with the firm long. Yet Hammond told the selectman that he had already learned of Coolidge that when "he says a thing is so, it is." As a politician in Massachusetts, especially as president of the state's senate, Coolidge continued to under-promise. Fellow lawmakers soon learned that when Coolidge said he might do something, that meant he would do it. They queued outside his office, and before too long, Coolidge was governor of the Bay State.

In Washington Coolidge under-promised and over-delivered so dramatically it was practically theater. When President Warren Harding died in 1923, people didn't expect much of his successor, Coolidge. And, after all, in just over a year, there would be elections. Perhaps Coolidge was a lame duck. People were especially skeptical about the Harding-Coolidge promise to keep cutting the federal budget. This then, as now, was hard to do.

Yet Silent Cal worked hard to honor his party's promises, and succeeded so well that he was elected in 1924, and with an astonishing absolute majority over opponents from two parties, the Democrats and Progressives. He cut the budget, sometimes without talking. He worked in tandem with another taciturn man, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. It was said of the silent president and his silent secretary that "the pair conversed in pauses."

One reason Coolidge saved words was that he really did want to save money. Washington, then as now was a city of spending. So, as Coolidge later confessed to another politician, the only way not to agree to spend was to shorten meetings with mendicants and keep silent. As a result of Coolidge's silence and his saving, he managed something politicians of both parties aspire to today: He actually cut the budget, leaving office in 1929 with federal spending lower than it had been when he moved in the White House. Voters who thought a smaller government was a good idea saw that Coolidge had redeemed his trust. But even those who did not agree with Coolidge policy appreciated that this president had done what he promised. And the snarky Alice Roosevelt Longworth? Washington's diva eventually became a good friend of both Coolidges.